This is part one of eight!

Most of my content, leading up to now, has focused on people who already support young Indigenous people (YIPs) in some way.

For this reason, I’ve not always been as detailed as I could be. I find myself glossing over the fundamentals of youth reconciliation, engagement, and dynamics.

I think there’s missed potential in that, so I’ve decided to take a step back and start from the beginning with the fundamentals.

This newsletter edition marks week one of eight articles I’m writing on how to engage YIPs.

I write a lot about youth engagement because we must engage YIPs to reconcile with them. In my opinion, engagement is the most powerful vehicle for youth reconciliation.

My philosophy is that if we have strong strategies and engagement practices, we are setting ourselves up for successful youth reconciliation.

“Engagements” are quite broad; they could be a one-off event, a series of educational workshops, short- or long-term training, or communications outreach.

Basically, these fundamentals will apply to any touch-point where someone engages a YIP. Whether in-person or virtual.

Without further ado, let’s jump into The Golden Rule of Youth Engagement.

I encourage you to think back to a time when you felt protected. A time when you had zero risk of danger, injury, or bullying.

For me, I think of my Grandma, whose house I can show up to unannounced anytime, and she’s excited to see me.

She’s good company, makes me feel special, and ensures I have a full belly before I go.

That’s the feeling we want to give YIPs when they engage with our teams. Let’s call this “The Lodge Feeling” for this article.

It will take time to do this, perhaps multiple engagements, but once we’ve established The Lodge Feeling with YIPs, we unlock a new level of youth strategy.

To bring this feeling to YIPs, we need three things:

1. Psychological Safety

2. Build Trust

3. Setting Boundaries

Let’s start with #1, psychological safety!

PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

It is the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes.

Our job as adults serving YIPs is to create an environment that makes them feel psychologically safe.

The thing about youth reconciliation work is that we must come to expect YIPs to make mistakes, share unchallenged ideas, and sometimes ask an ignorant question or two.

To get good at anything, we need to ask basic questions before we get to the advanced questions, and it’s up to the adults in the room to nurture this journey for YIPs.

Let’s set up a fake scenario where we are engaging young people to inform an Official Community Plan.

This may be the first time a YIP is hearing about an Official Community Plan, and thus, they may not have much to say or have super helpful input at the start.

In this scenario, we need to create psychological safety for YIPs to ask basic questions and make sure they fully understand before they offer their expertise.

We do this by offering a short presentation, snacks, interactive educational exercises, and being a patient facilitator.

A common mistake in creating psychological safety is dismissing input because it does not fit into the scope of the engagement.

• I fully empathize with this, because we have a limited time at in-person gatherings and want to stay focused. Still, let’s not rush onto the next point.

• When we move on too fast from a YIP's input, it sends the message that they are not valued, when we should be celebrating that they took a risk in speaking up.

• I don’t mean fake enthusiasm either; I mean trying our best to thank the YIP for their input and connect it to the engagement goals, even if it’s indirect.

• Most YIPs that come to engagements are friends or run in the same circle of people, so dismissing their friend may ruin relationships with everyone else.

There’s only so much I can write in an article, so I encourage readers to Google “Indigenous psychological safety” and “Indigenous Cultural Safety” to see what’s out there.

The second part of the golden rule is to build trust with YIPs. Trust is built through actions, not words. The act of putting on an engagement deserves to be celebrated, but if it is done without building trust, it could be seen as a deficit. Let me explain.

BUILDING TRUST

YIPs who find themselves in government or non-profit engagements understand that the standard of engagement practices is to tokenize YIPs.

It’s sad, in my opinion, that we’ve come to expect engagements to be tokenizing and not done in good will of supporting the transformative change that reconciliation calls for.

But not Frayed Feather newsletter enjoyers, we don’t play that tokenizing game; we’re here to elevate the standard!

Still, we must understand this is the expectation of many YIPs attending our groups because they may have their guard up until they can trust us.

• This means that even though we are investing time, money, and staff capacity to put on an engagement, it doesn’t communicate our commitment to youth reconciliation as much as we think, because other people do it and tokenize anyway.

• I share this because we are working uphill, so to speak, with YIPs, because YIPs have been tokenized in the past by other people, but we must demonstrate we are not tokenizers, then build trust.

Some ways to support trust building are showing up early and greeting the youth personally.

• Bonus points if you’re not the facilitator and thus did not have a vested interest in learning names, having chit chat, etc.

• Think about it, you’re a young person who walks into a room of three to five adults and only one is interested in talking to you… That’s kinda weird, don’t be weird.

• If we invited a consultant to meet the team, we would want everyone to meet them, not just the project lead. Treat YIPs like consultants who are coming to offer expertise.

The next thing is to capture everything shared and follow through on promises. It sounds straightforward, because it is, but for some reason, with youth work, this is not standard practice.

• I’ve noticed a work culture in youth work that we don’t need to be as accountable to the YIPs we engage because they have less professional expectations of feedback loops, timelines, and quality of presentation.

• I’m not going to lie; some YIPs most likely do have fewer professional expectations, but that doesn’t mean we get to avoid responsibilities to them.

• YIPs will eventually get into the workforce and develop professional expectations, and they will think back to all the engagements they’ve done in the past and maybe feel exploited.

• I know I did! The first time I did an engagement was for a crisis hotline, and these people treated us like a check box, and honestly, I’m ashamed for them for treating YIPs in college like that.

• YIPs are sensitive to these kinds of things. Some YIPs have professional expectations and are waiting for you to meet them so that they can trust you.

• YIPs are always watching, so let’s exceed their expectations consistently and build an unbreakable bond of trust together.

Last but not least, the third part of the golden rule is setting clear, healthy boundaries and modelling that for YIPs.

SETTING CLEAR HEALTHY BOUNDARIES

Setting boundaries can be difficult, so I recommend practicing this as much as possible, because we must be firm on them by the time we engage with YIPs.

Some examples of boundaries in YIPs engagements are:

1. No cellphones.

2. Do not distract other participants.

3. Raise your hand if you have a question.

4. Do not raise your voice over others.

5. What’s shared in the circle stays in the circle.

6. Use “I” statements.

7. Speak from your own experience.

Give or take, these are some healthy boundaries. Personally, I don’t do the “no cellphones” rule. Instead, I tell people, “You can use your phones, just don’t distract your neighbour.”

• I find this works to build trust because I’m not saying “don’t do that, cause I can’t trust you to not get distracted.”

• Instead, I’m communicating: “I’ll trust you to be on your phone, but don’t disrespect my trust by distracting others.”

Another way to do this is instead of presenting the list of boundaries/rules at the start, we start with a blank piece of paper and ask the YIPs to co-create them with you.

We can do this in several ways. I say don’t overthink it and pose the question to the participants. This is great for building trust because we are setting the standard of co-creation from the start.

Finally, to spark some ownership in this social agreement, we can have the YIPs name the agreement as a whole or the rules individually.

• YIPs are much more likely to follow an agreement that they and their peers developed together, not one that an authoritative party forces them to follow.

So before we think icebreakers, workshops, or skill-building… let’s pause and ask: “Have we built safety yet?”

When YIPs get that “Lodge Feeling”, they don’t just attend the event; they open up, take risks, and grow as people!

Want Frayed Feathers to facilitate your YIPs event? Check out my website.

Peace! ✌️